Rab Boyce's Site

Ok, the much awaiting announcement finally happened. The big surprise to me is the mixed reaction in the tech community. There seems to be a large contingent who are saying 'it's just a big iphone touch'. And tell me what is wrong with that exactly?

I love my iphone, and my iphone touch. They do their jobs very well ( well, apart from answer calls ). The availability of the app store, the amazing UI, the great browsing experience. If only it was bigger....

..and now it is. A bigger , faster, ipod touch..? what on earth is not to like? Surely it fits the niche of a sofa/coffee/table device much better than a netbook or an iphone/ipod ever could..

Sure..it doesn't have a whizzy new gesture based interface, it doesn't have a camera, and it doesn't make phone calls..but then why should it do any of those things?

for me..if its an excellent browsing experience, can display PDFs and ebooks well, and play the odd movie or two..i'm sold.

I also think the availability of the app store makes it a killer device. Im sure there will be some amazing apps in due course.

Downsides? no multi tasking ( to be confirmed )...and while I understand Apple's reasoning for that..no IM in the background would seem like a bit of a downer in 2010.

A 4:3 aspect ratio? This initially seemed bizarre, as surely most movies are 16:9? but an article on macworld makes a good case for a 4:3 ratio. It isn't primarily a movie playing device...its a web browsing/book reading device, and a 4:3 ratio makes more sense.

So, The big question is how many are you going to buy?

:)